Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Fly with budget airline or commercial airline? If you want to have a direct flight to Korea from Singapore, you are only limited to SIA, Korea Air or Asiana Air which are more than 1.5k SGD for two person. If budget airline like Air Asia will cost around 1k plus for two person, I might as well top up another 400 for Cathay Pacific? Hence, we choose to fly with Cathay Pacific to Korea which you will need to transit in HK for a few hours.

Greeted by Big Bang poster!

After 6-7 hours in flight in total minus the transiting time, we have finally reached Seoul! What you need to do in Incheon Airport before departing to the city? Firstly, you need to get a pocket wifi / eggie? haha. Well, it is actually a portable wifi device that will allow you to access to internet wherever you are as long as you have coverage. If you worry that the places that you are visiting is pretty far from city area and not able to connect to the internet, worry not as the wifi coverage in Korea is pretty wide and fast. We traveled to Jeonju and have no problem with the internet connection at all. There are a few telco companies that offers pretty good deals for pocket wifi, so choose your telco company wisely based on your needs. All these telco companies have a little booth outside at the arriving hall which is pretty convenient for all tourists. If you can not find the right out, do ask the information counter for directions.

Then, you will need to source for T-Money which is equivalent to Easy-Link card in Singapore and Touch N Go card in Malaysia at any Convenient store. This comes very handy if you are travelling free and easy around Seoul. After getting all these, we are free to go. We option for AREX which is also known as Air Port Rail to Hongik University Station where our Guest house is located at. You can choose to travel with bus, or taxi, but we find it more convenient to travel with Arex.

If anyone tells you that Seoul is not that cold in early April, it is so not true. Perhaps it is not for those who are staying in a four season country, but as for us, it is freeeezing! Especially when we reached Seoul, it was already 8pm plus local time, the temperature is almost as cold Winter time, for us la. haha. Despite suffering from cold attack, it did not stop up from getting out of the guest house! First stop, Hongdae!

Hongdae is famous for its nightlife district and cafes. But, drinking is not really our cup of tea at that time, we are craving for hot food to fight this cold weather! Hence, we found this Mandu shop that was introduced in Eatmykimchi! Do check out here on the video they produced.

Everything looks so yummy! We option for the Fried Mandu and Spicy Mandu Soup to warm us up.

Deep Fried Mandu with Japchae fillings. THIS, is the bomb! We love it so so much!

It is deep fried to perfection, with Japchae fillings. It just cannot get any better than this. Slurrrpssss. This is one of the thing that we really miss in Korea.

Spicy Mandu Soup

This Soup comes with various dumplings, potato noodle/tanghoon, eggs and also spring onion. Perfecto to combat the cold weather. We slurps down everything in the bowl and were stuffed to the max.

Not forgetting our first kimchi in Seoul! ^^

So if you are ever dropping by Hongdae, do look for this shop for its awesomeness Mandus.

If you are walking around Hongdae, you can never miss the beautiful mural paintings along the streets. This is where quite a few drama shooting take place at.

Street food Cart!

Something that I personally miss the most in Korea. You can always find a street cart like this around Seoul selling various snacks from teokbokki, to Soondae, deep fried items, or Hotteok. We stopped by this for the ever famous street food, teokbokki.

Hoho! First teobokki in Seoul. and it is oh so yummy!!! Spicy, chewy and flavorful! Mummss..